When you are building your personal brand, it’s a lot like marketing your company. You have a daunting number of choices about where to put your marketing efforts.
Before you take the first steps in marketing your personal brand, here are a few considerations:
What are you doing that’s already working?
If your audience is already reading, engaging and buying through certain channels, leverage that! Also, expand your relationships from one platform to another. Your Twitter friends may be on Instagram. Your LinkedIn colleagues are probably on Facebook. Look people up when you start out somewhere new, and strengthen your connections. If you can meet in person, even better.
Is print in your marketing mix?
If not, why not? Print works! Print doesn’t have to be the center of your program, but if you’re in our industry, walk the talk! If you are between jobs and working on your personal brand, find a printer who cares about your personal success. Partnerships with key providers can accelerate your progress.
Be involved.
Monitor your brand and be informed. You may not be self-sufficient when it comes to marketing, but you need to be part of the process. It’s your personal brand, so don’t let someone else make those big decisions.
Define what success looks like.
More followers? More conversations? More phone calls? More opportunities? Keep in mind that when you are building your personal brand, you need to protect your reputation and keep people’s trust. All the followers in the world won’t make up for the loss of your good name.
Control what you can control.
Don’t put the cart before the horse. What is the first and easiest thing to aim for? Set achievable goals. Monitor your progress. If you want more connections, you have reach out and be approachable. You can control that. Work with what you can control and you’ll be on your way.
Don’t get too far without assessing and recalibrating.
Look up every once in awhile and see where you are on the big map. Sometimes we get infatuated with our follower count or email clicks. An annual review of your program will keep you on track.
Building your personal brand can seem daunting. Being systematic, however, will help you define your goals and reach them sooner.
Read more from Sandy here.
Sandy Hubbard is a marketing strategist for printing companies. She builds sales and marketing programs that can be sustained over the long haul, with affordable tools and your own people…and without stress!
5 Responses
Thanks for sharing these insights, about initial stage of branding. That is true that social media account is best to increase new connections and brand awareness. And print is the key factor for brand recognition and success of the brand. All the points mentioned here are considerable.
Hi Richard, when building a personal brand, be sure to look around and see if your audience is present on different digital platforms such as Instagram, Pinterest, and Snapchat. Also, I agree that we should be using print to build our personal brands. Personalized stationery is a great way to achieve that, as are promotional items. Your own email newsletter and blog are also considerations. Thanks for your comment!
Wonderful post! For me the key takeaway is “…you need to protect your reputation and keep people’s trust. All the followers in the world won’t make up for the loss of your good name.”
Thank you, Jon. I think the farther we get in our careers, the more we realize it is up to us, personally, to monitor our own personal brand as well as position it. It takes vigilance!